Monster's Ball

"Forster's poised direction, as well as powerful turns from Billy Bob Thornton and the Oscar-winning Halle Berry, make this compelling viewing."

"A serious movie made by seriously talented people, and I never quite came round to it."

"Monster's Ball slowly and quietly gets under your skin."

"Intimate, gruelling, and in some strange way, uplifting."

"Holds you in thrall from first frame to last."

"An arty sleepwalk."

"Dark and beautifully directed."

"The movie has the complexity of great fiction, and requires our empathy as we interpret the decisions that are made."

"A vastly overpraised study of racism that's so bleak, even its sex scenes are a drag."

"Monster's Ball is bolstered by a poetic, intelligent sensibility not seen in an American film since Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line."

"It's less than half a fine movie."

"All roads lead to acting-award nominations, but none lead to truth."

"The actors make it unique and unforgettable."

"Far too studied to generate much impact."

"A maddening mess, but there's some real feeling in its madness."

"This is one of those rare movies in which even people glimpsed only for a moment or two seem to have lives that ramify beyond the screen, as if the story were being witnessed rather than dramatised."

"Enigmatic, elliptical and mesmerising..."

"One of the year's most unusual, subtle and thoroughly involving films."

"Given the deliberate scarcity of action and dialogue, the actors are forced to rely heavily upon their interior lives, and more than deliver the goods."